HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 33 Number 1 Article 14 Fall 2013 All Change at Rasuwa Garhi Sam Cowan [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation Cowan, Sam. 2013. All Change at Rasuwa Garhi. HIMALAYA 33(1). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol33/iss1/14 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. This Research Report is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Research Report | All Change at Rasuwa Garhi Sam Cowan From time immemorial, pilgrims, traders, artisans, and Kyirong to aid the transshipment of goods and to carry religious teachers going to Lhasa from Kathmandu had to out major trading on their own account. Jest records that decide between two main routes. One roughly followed as late as 1959 there were forty five Newar households in the line of the present road to Kodari, crossed the border Kyirong and forty in Kuti (Jest 1993). where Friendship Bridge is built and followed a steep trail The two routes were used for the invasion of Tibet in 1788 to Kuti (Tib. Nyalam). Loads were carried by porters up to and 1791 by the forces of the recently formed Gorkha this point but pack animals were used for the rest of the state under the direction of Bahadur Shah, which led to journey. The alternative route went north on the route the plundering of Tashilhunpo monastery in Shigatse. The that vehicles now use to get trekkers through Betrawati routes were also used by the Manchu armies when they and Dhunche to Syabrubesi, the start point for the popular launched their powerful counter offensive in 1792. When Langtang treks. From there it was a twenty-kilometer trail Jung Bahadur Rana launched his unprovoked war against following the Bhote kosi to cross the border at Rasuwa Tibet in 1855, he divided his attacking forces between Gadhi. It was a further twenty kilometers, following the both routes, and built a fort at Rasuwa Gadhi as part of the river trail, to reach Kyirong in Tibet. Besides being a preparation for the invasion. staging post for mule caravans, Kyirong, like Kuti, was also a busy trading post where Nepalese traders from the In 1961 when the Chinese proposed the building of a road border areas brought rice to barter for Tibetan salt. to connect Lhasa to Kathmandu, both the Kyirong and Kuti routes were given serious consideration. How one came to The detail and hazards of both routes can be read in the be selected rather than the other is an interesting tale well accounts of the journeys made by the Lhasa-based Newar told by Rose (1971). On 25 September 1961, King Mahendra merchants of Kathmandu known as the Lhasa traders set off on 17-day state visit to China and Outer Mongolia. (Tuladhar 2004). They spent long periods in Lhasa but He had a well-earned reputation for skill in handling merchandise had to be regularly transported to maintain pressures from India and China, and turning them to his the stock in the trading houses located round the Barkhor and Nepal’s advantage. It is clear that throughout the visit in Lhasa, and the decision on what route to take must often he was on maximum alert to resist Chinese blandishments have been an agonizing one. The Kathmandu to Kyirong to say anything that would offend India. The stated journey was completed in nine stages on trails that are purpose behind the visit to Peking was the signing of a described as long, narrow and hard. The Kathmandu to boundary agreement but, totally unexpectedly, on the last Kuti journey was done in ten days and, if anything, the day of the visit, an agreement to construct the road was accounts suggest the trail was even more hazardous. signed. Though not discussed during the visit, the Chinese Kathmandu Newars also permanently resided in Kuti and HIMALAYA Volume 33, Numbers 1 & 2 | 97 presented a draft road agreement to Mahendra on the day interest in upgrading Nepal-China transit points and before his departure and to quote directly from Rose, “in constructing other necessary physical infrastructures to such terms as to imply that implementation of the treaty facilitate trade with Nepal (Bhandary 2012). depended upon a favorable response to the road question. I first visited Rasuwa Gadhi in March 2006. Before doing Having been badly outmaneuvered for once, the King was so, I had read accounts by two of the first outsiders in no position to resist the pressure” (1971: 238-239). to visit the place: Tillman in 1949 (Tilman 1952) and Dr. Tulsi Giri, who was accompanying Mahendra, signed Forbes in 1956 (Forbes 1962). In his inimitable way, the agreement for Nepal, but this did not deflect Indian Tilman describes his walk to the border through the anger towards Mahendra. The Chinese were insistent Tibetan speaking village of Timure with “its row of five on immediate implementation. Survey teams did their noble and ancient chortens” where “some land-hungry work in early 1962 and proposed two routes, one through heathen had planted and fenced his maize so that the Rasuwa Gadhi and the other through Kodari, with a south-bound traveller must pass them, willy-nilly, on the strong preference for the former as it was shorter and unlucky side.” At Rasuwa Gadhi, “lying in the narrowest traversed easier terrain. Possibly hoping to postpone the and deepest part of the gorge,” he found a few soldiers construction for as long as possible, Mahendra insisted on on the Nepal side but on the Tibetan side, apart from a the Kodari route. Within a remarkably short time, work stone slab inscribed with Chinese characters, “there was started and the road was completed in 1966. nothing, not even an empty sentry box, to denote one had crossed a frontier.” He pitched his tent “within a A visit in March 2013 confirmed that the section of the substantial stone fort, its walls embrasured for cannon road (now called the Araniko highway) from Kathmandu and loopholed for rifles, and squeezed between the to Bahrabise is reasonably well maintained but the 26 Trisuli river and one rock wall of the gorge” (1952: 53-54). kilometers up the steep sided gorge from Bahrabise to the border is in a bad state. It is essentially a compacted Forbes also commented on the Timure chortens and on and rutted dirt track susceptible in a number of places to the fact that there were some friendly Indian policemen major landslides, a situation made worse by unrestricted manning a signal station in the village. Presumably this stone quarrying above the road at various points. The was one of seventeen such stations established across Chinese have recently started work on a dry port on the Nepal’s northern border by secret protocol in 1950. They Nepal side to ease the congestion caused by the present stayed until Mahendra requested their removal in 1969. archaic system for the transshipment of goods from Khasa Forbes also found little sign of activity on the Tibetan side (Tib. Zhangmu) on their side through the Tatopani custom of the frontier but he did photograph the inscription on offices on the Nepal side. They have black topped the the stone slab and later had it translated. It was erected on road to the border, cutting the journey time from Kuti to November 26, 1792 and refers to the demarcation of the about an hour. Little wonder they are showing signs of frontier after “the victory over the Gorkhas accomplished frustration and despair about the state of the road on the by General Fu, the Great General for the Pacification of Nepal side, a point well illustrated by what the Chinese the West”. Forbes also gives a translation by Sir Charles ambassador was quoted as saying on 23 December 2012 Bell of the inscription on a famous pillar in Lhasa which when he laid the foundation stone for the new dry port. describes in great detail and colorful language the victories “As we are constructing a dry port on the Nepal-Tibet by the Manchu armies “in the land of thieves” where they border we must repair the Araniko highway. Come up with “traversed the mountains, so difficult to pass through, as a proposal. China is ready to help repair it” (Dangal 2012). though they were moving over a level plain and crossed Local traders are also quoted in the article as blaming rivers with great waves and narrow gorges as though they the government for doing nothing to improve the road. were small streams” (1962: 126-130). Why Nepal is apparently dragging its feet can only be a In 2006 I found that apart from a new footbridge, a two- matter of conjecture, but three days after the ambassador storey building on the Tibet side and two small huts on the expressed his frustration on the issue, he attended a Nepal side, very little had changed since Tilman and Forbes ceremony in Kathmandu at which a certificate was handed had visited. It was delightfully tranquil. The chortens in over to mark the completion of the Rasuwa Gadhi to Timure were still as impressive as ever and the walls of Syabrubesi road, thus connecting Kyirong to Kathmandu Jung Bahadur’s fort were well preserved.